


All About Shovels

by lwise2019



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22762675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: Copyright © Y87 by Linnea GustafssonAll rights reserved.As the only immune in a family of non-immunes, Saga Karlsson longs to join the Reclaimers instead of becoming a skald as her family expects.  But when she is forced to leave the safety of Sollerön and make her way in the world alone, will she find a horrible death at the talons of a ghastly abomination?  Or life and love?  Or … something else?
Comments: 8
Kudos: 5





	1. Saga makes a decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copyright © Y87 by Linnea Gustafsson
> 
> All rights reserved.
> 
> As the only immune in a family of non-immunes, Saga Karlsson longs to join the Reclaimers instead of becoming a skald as her family expects. But when she is forced to leave the safety of Sollerön and make her way in the world alone, will she find a horrible death at the talons of a ghastly abomination? Or life and love? Or … something else?

_Your fourteenth birthday is your best! Your fourteenth birthday is your best!_

The chant ran through Saga’s head in time with her pounding feet. Seeking to drown it out, she tried to work out how many times she had run down this street.

_More than two years … twice a day, six days a week … but there were some holidays … so about twelve hundred times …_

Her feet slowed as she approached the posters. _The_ posters, as she thought of them. She hardly glanced at the first few, for Hunters and Scouts, as she knew that she had neither the skills nor the temperament for those professions. She skipped the next, for Cleansers, as she had no desire to be a destroyer. But the last one …

Saga stopped to stare longingly at the poster. It had been replaced again just a month ago and had not yet faded. The background was a field with cattle and horses grazing and just a hint of the Wall beyond. In the midground, on the left was a neat whitewashed farmhouse and on the right was a chicken coop with the chickens pecking around their yard, their chicks following. In the foreground, a girl held the lead rope of a draft horse while adults – her parents, one assumed – and older children loaded sacks into a wagon. At the bottom of the poster was the simple appeal: 

**Win back what was lost! Join us today! Become a Reclaimer!**

Saga sighed. Would it have been better if she had never seen the posters? 

Reluctantly, Saga turned away. So many times she had turned east and then south again, running past her home and down to the skald school, but this time she continued north and then west onto Sundsvägen, and westward to the Gate. It was not far – nowhere in Sollerön was very far, Saga knew.

Saga stopped at the Gate, uncertain as to exactly how one requested it to be opened. There was a rope hanging next to a door in the great Wall that surrounded Sollerön; should she tug on it?

Just as she was reaching for the rope, the door opened and an older man whom Saga recognized as Axel Olsson came out. “What do you need?” he enquired courteously.

“I … I want to leave,” Saga answered, stumbling a bit over the words.

“To leave? You’re the Karlssons’ daughter, aren’t you?” He looked around as if he might have missed her family.

“Yes, but … but … I’m fourteen. Today,” she added.

“Fourteen. Ah.” He looked at her thoughtfully, then glanced down at the tattoo on her right hand. She held it up so there could be no doubt that it was green, and he nodded.

“Of course you may leave, but the ferry is already gone for the day. It doesn’t travel at night, you know.” He glanced significantly at the sun, already sinking almost to the Wall. “You’ll have to come back in the morning.”

Saga backed away, almost despairing at his words. Where would she go for the night? She tried to think of any friends who might possibly be willing to take her in, but realized with a small shock that there really was no one who would care that much.

Olsson was watching her face as these thoughts went through her mind. In a kindly tone, he asked, “Do you have a place to stay the night?”

Almost tempted to lie, Saga nevertheless blurted out the truth: “No, no, I … don’t think so.”

“Hmm. Well, it’s not really within the rules, but I don’t see any harm … there’s no one in the quarantine rooms today. You may stay there for the night, if you wish. But remember – if you go out into the quarantine rooms, you can’t come back for two weeks. Those rooms are outside the Wall.”

“Yes! I’ll do that! I … I don’t mean to come back …” She stopped, thinking she was saying too much.

“Very well, then. This way.”

Olsson led the way to a steel door with a wheel mounted in the middle. He turned the wheel and pushed the heavy steel door open, revealing a short steel-lined passageway with a similar steel door at the far end, then waved her back with one hand while a cat that had been lounging on a shelf in the passageway hopped down and approached the far door.

The cat sniffed along the base of the door for several seconds, then turned, yawned extravagantly, and hopped back up on the shelf. Olsson chuckled. “So there’s no grossling waiting in the quarantine rooms. You go in here and wait until I close and lock this door. Then you open that door, go in, and close the door behind you. It will lock and you won’t be able to come back for two weeks.” He gave her a stern look. “Be very sure you want to do this.”

Saga took a deep breath. “This is what I want.”

Olsson nodded. “In you go, then.”

And just that quickly, Saga made her way through the passageway and the far door, and away from everything she had ever known.

* * *

Saga pushed shut the heavy steel door. It was well-balanced and perhaps ten centimeters thick, tapering to the inner side, with hidden hinges and a completely blank outer side so that once it was closed there was no way to force it in and no way to pull it open. No grossling would get through that door without actually smashing it – and Saga couldn’t get through it either until someone on the inside opened it.

Saga turned to regard the quarantine area, deeply shadowed as the sun was nearly below the high walls. She stood on a narrow paved street; to her right were two doors about four meters apart, with a green area beyond in which stood a wooden bench, and to her left were three doors similarly spaced. At the far end was another steel door with a wheel and also a heavy bolt which was not in use.

Saga walked cautiously up the street, opening each door and peeking in as she passed. The two rooms on the right and the first two on the left were all sleeping quarters with a set of bunk beds on one wall and a wooden cabinet and a hamper against the other wall. There were no windows but there was a single electric bulb hanging in each room; the doors were steel and featured heavy bolts to keep them closed. The last room on the left contained the plumbing, Saga was relieved to see, while the green space proved to contain a wooden table and several benches.

There being little to do after her tour, Saga returned to the doors closest to where she had entered and picked the one on the right. The bunks had mattresses but no bedding, bedding being readily found in the cabinet. Saga made up the lower bed, pulled off her boots and jacket, and lay down to sleep. Sleep was slow in coming as she thought back over how the day had gone so disastrously wrong.

* * *

As always, Saga woke before the rest of the family and immediately went to work on her chores, tidying her room, collecting eggs, and feeding the chickens. It was difficult to suppress her excitement: _I’m fourteen! I’m a woman and not a child! At last I can do what I want to do and not just what is expected of me as the daughter of Skald Arvid Karlsson and Skald Emilia Karlsson!_

Of course Saga loved her mother and father and even (most of the time) her little brother Theodor, but their lives were so boring! Study and study and write and write and teach and never go outside if they could help it – they seemed happy with it, but Saga thought she’d go mad if she had to spend her life that way. And now she was fourteen and could change things for herself.

The rest of the family was just stirring as Saga left, running north to the posters as usual and then making her circuitous way back to the school, tiring herself out enough that she could endure the hours trapped in lectures. She listened and made notes dutifully even though she meant to end her schooling at the end of the year. Certainly she would not disgrace her family by failing just because she didn’t want to follow in their footsteps.

The school day ended at last and Saga ran back along her usual route, pausing at the posters to whisper “Soon!” when no one was close enough to hear. Entering the house, she sniffed at the cooking odors: chicken! _Surely Mother would not kill one of the flock?_ Saga darted out to the coop to check, but they were all there. _So Mother bought a chicken? Just for my birthday?_ Saga hugged herself, pleased that her mother had remembered – her mother was often too focused on her work to notice the children, and her father was no better.

Returning to the house, Saga called a cheery greeting to her mother but did not enter the kitchen as her mother was usually grouchy when cooking. There would be time to talk later after supper, so Saga trotted upstairs to review her class notes until her father came home.

Supper was a happy affair as the whole family congratulated Saga on her birthday and then settled down to the important work of devouring the chicken. Most days there was only fish and sometimes no meat at all, just eggs and vegetables, so the chicken meant more to Theodor than a mere sister’s birthday. Soon enough, supper was over, the dishes washed, Theodor dismissed to play with the neighbor boys, and it was time for the new adult to talk to her parents.

“Our little girl is now a woman,” Emilia began the conversation, giving her a proud glance.

As Saga opened her mouth to answer, Arvid picked up the conversational thread, “And so now you need to start your career, Saga. Now, I’ve talked to the Head Skald of the school and he speaks highly of your abilities. Your reading in Icelandic is particularly good, and your skill in the dead tongues is less good but with a little work could be excellent. I think an apprenticeship with a scribe for a year will improve that, and I’ve arranged that …”

“But you know I don’t want to be a skald,” Saga interrupted the flow of words.

“Don’t be silly, Saga,” her mother answered, “you’ve been saying you want to be a, a Reclaimer and we haven’t argued with you,” _much_ , Saga thought, “but that’s just childish. You’re trained as a skald and have a bright future ahead of you.”

“But I want to be a Reclaimer!” Saga insisted. “I want to … to make something permanent, something real.” Warming to her words, she went on, “I want to take back some of the land that was lost, that was stolen from us. A hundred years from now, a thousand, there will be farms and houses and, and people on land that I reclaim …” Her voice faltered at their expressions.

“You don’t think we skalds make anything permanent?” Arvid asked coldly. “You don’t think saving and understanding the knowledge of the past will benefit people in a hundred years?”

“No, I –”

But her father interrupted, “No child of mine could have so little regard for the life of mind. No child of _mine_ could want to grub in the dirt instead of studying all of human knowledge.” Oddly, he had turned to glare at her mother.

“No, no, I –” Saga tried again, appalled at the way the conversation was going.

“Saga,” Emilia said sharply, “you’re trained to learn. You’re trained to add to the sum of knowledge. You’re saying you’ll let that training rot while you do nothing but shovel shit!”

“It won’t rot! I will learn! I’ll – I’ll learn all about shit – I’ll learn all about shovels!”

Saga could see instantly that that was the wrong thing to say. Her mother’s face was turning red with anger, and the glare she gave Saga was matched by a glare she turned on Arvid. “You unnatural child!” she exclaimed. “You’re no daughter of mine! I have no daughter!” She was working herself up and Arvid, who normally tried to calm her, was silently glaring at Saga as well. “We have no daughter! Now get out! Get out of our house!”

Saga’s mouth fell open. This couldn’t be happening. She tried to answer but Arvid moved toward her, a fist raised threateningly and she was forced to give ground. Backing toward the door, she stuttered, “Fa – father –”

“Get out!” he roared, his face as red as her mother’s.

Saga’s nerve broke. She whirled, scooped up her boots and jacket, and ran from her home.

* * *

Saga buried her face in the thin pillow and cried herself to sleep. She was, after all, only fourteen.


	2. Saga Goes Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saga goes Outside and takes the ferry to Mora.

_What an awful dream!_

Saga yawned, stretched … her right hand banged against something.

 _What is this? Did I get turned around somehow in the night?_ The wall was on the left side of the bed and it was wood-panelled. This — she felt it sleepily with her right hand in the pitch darkness of the room — this was concrete.

She was, quite suddenly, wide awake. Memories of the terrible birthday came back to her. This was not her tiny upstairs bedroom in the little white-painted house in Sollerön; this was a quarantine room and she was … disowned.

_”We have no daughter!”_

After a long moment of staring blankly into the darkness, she pushed herself to her feet, fumbled at the back wall with her left hand. Ah, there was the switch, and there was light. Pulling on her jacket and boots, she quickly stripped the bunk of all bedding and tossed it in the hamper clearly intended for that purpose. _How does that get cleaned? Well, Axel didn't tell me so I suppose I'm not supposed to do anything about it. Now … what time is it? The ferry leaves at noon and … what if I'm late? What if it's already noon?_

_Don't leave me! Don't leave me!_

She rushed to the door, yanked it open, looked around wildly. The quarantine area was still in shadow, the Sun behind the Wall, behind Sollerön. It was far from noon. She gasped in relief, scolded herself for panicking in such a silly way, headed down to the facilities at the west end.

Once she had washed up as best she could, she turned to regard the quarantine area and considered her next move. Pace up and down in the short street for hours or … she turned to regard the outside door. It could be opened from the other side, according to what she'd read, so long as no one on the inside took alarm and locked it. She could go Outside and still get back in if there was any danger.

She could go Outside.

Saga approached the door hesitantly, put her hand on the wheel. Turn the wheel, push open the door, go through it. It would be so easy. She'd been going through doors all her life. It was just one more.

She could not turn the wheel. She lowered her hand slowly and backed away, staring at it fearfully.

_Stop this. I'm going out there. I have to go out there to become a Reclaimer. That's the **point** of being a Reclaimer: to take back what was lost. To make the Outside safe again. Open the door._

Not giving herself time to think about it and lose her nerve again, Saga stepped forward, turned the wheel hard to the left, pushed open the door and stepped Outside.

Saga had _seen_ the Outside before, of course. More than once she had been permitted to go up to the guard posts on the Wall to look out at the lake and down at the little immune fishing village — hardly more than a camp, really — that clung to the side of the Wall and supplied Sollerön with its fish, but looking out from atop the Wall, far out of reach of grosslings, was much different from actually standing Outside.

Before her was a narrow shore and beyond it the waters of the lake, sunlight flashing off the waves. To her left, there was a pier and tied up to it, the ferry boat with its sails furled and a cat sitting on the prow, gazing off into the lake. Farther to the left was a wooden picnic table with benches on either side and four people sitting around it and, incredibly, eating, talking, and laughing.

The door, which was balanced well enough for her to push it open, slowly swung shut as she stepped to the side. It had a handle so she could pull it open if she wanted to, and the temptation to do so was very strong. The four looked up at the thud of the closing door and one, a middle-aged woman of above average height, with blonde hair going gray falling to her shoulders, leapt to her feet and came over to greet Saga.

“So there you are!” she said, pleased. “First time Outside, right? And you came out by yourself! Usually we need to go in and fetch people from Sollerön, but not you. Very good, very brave!” Saga blinked at her, feeling overwhelmed and not at all brave. “Now come over here and have breakfast with us. We won't leave until noon, so there's no hurry. Oh — I'm Karin Bengtsson and the big guy is my husband, Lars.” Lars was not much more than average height but he was powerfully built, middle-aged like his wife and with short iron-gray hair. “Those two goofs are our son, Niklas, and our apprentice, Karl Holm.” Both “goofs” were young men somewhat older than Saga herself, taller than Lars but rather slender, as if they'd had their growth spurts but not yet filled out. Niklas had blond hair like his mother but cut short, while Karl had dark brown hair of shoulder-length. The three men nodded courteously to Saga, Karl daring a shy smile.

“I-I … isn't it dangerous to sit out, uh, out here and just … eat?” she ventured.

“Well, now,” Lars answered, gesturing her to a seat beside him, “Hunters and fishermen have been sailing over this lake for decades now, and they've cleaned it out pretty well. Not that things can't still crawl into it from the farther shores, but it's pretty clean. Those guards up there” — he waved casually towards the Wall — “will sound the alarm if anything large comes along, and we can run for the quarantine if that happens, and stay safe while they deal with it. That _hasn't_ happened though, has it, Karin, not since Niklas was a boy?” Karin nodded agreement, though Saga glanced at Niklas and thought that it wasn't all that _long_ since Niklas was a boy. “And anything smaller, well, Kissekatt will warn us and we're all very good fighters.” He patted the pistol at his side.

Less reassured than he had intended, Saga nevertheless allowed herself to be persuaded to join their breakfast. The meal was bread and cheese, and porridge with milk; there was plenty of it, and they provided an extra plate, bowl, and utensils for Saga, urging her to help them finish it off. She was not terribly hungry as she had had birthday supper the night before, but it occurred to her that she had no idea where her next meal would come from and so she did not decline their offers. It did not occur to her that they might have suspected her problem and been doing their best to care for her.

Afterwards, the ferry crew chatted among themselves, discussing the weather, the cargo that they had delivered and that which they would be carrying back, the fishing, and other such topics. They didn't exclude Saga, but they didn't push her to converse either. She sat quietly listening to them and trying to absorb the sense of safety that they projected. As the hour approached noon, Karl jumped up, trotted over into the quarantine, and returned with a bundle of bedding which he took to the ferry.

Karin saw Saga watching this activity and hastened to reassure her, “There's plenty more bedding in there. We'll wash that tonight and bring it back tomorrow. Likely there won't be any travellers tomorrow either — there hardly ever are, you know, no one really wants to do the quarantine if they can help it — but even if there are, they'll have the bedding they need.” Saga nodded slowly. She should have realized that: of course the ferry crew would also deal with maintaining the quarantine quarters, for who else could?

At length it was noon and they all boarded the ferry, the crew casting off and raising the sails with the ease of long practice. “Stay on the deck,” Karin advised Saga, “over here out of the way. If you've never been on a ship before, you may well be seasick, and I don't want to clean up after you. Keep your eyes on the horizon, and if you must upchuck, do it over the rail.” Saga swallowed, nodded timidly, and stayed where she'd been directed.

Surprisingly, Saga was not subject to seasickness. She obediently kept her eyes on the horizon — mostly — but she sneaked peeks at the crew as they went about their duties. The art of sailing ships had not been covered in her classes and she found their skilled and coordinated activities quite fascinating. Too soon, she thought, they reached the port outside the Mora city wall.


End file.
